


Love In The Time of Tree Man

by Hawkbringer



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Big dorks, Cooking, Domestic, Drinking, Episode: s02e06 Futamono, Grief/Mourning, Holding Hands, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Short & Sweet, Soft Boys, Team Sassy Science (Hannibal), grumpy zeller, proper ending, tactless zeller
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:54:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23721181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hawkbringer/pseuds/Hawkbringer
Summary: After losing Beverly, Price and Zeller fall into closer orbit around each other, eventually having an actual conversation about it, but not before intertwining their lives in ways that feel very much like romance.
Relationships: Jimmy Price/Brian Zeller
Comments: 1
Kudos: 36





	Love In The Time of Tree Man

**Author's Note:**

> Original writing date: 13th july 2015
> 
> 206 40.00 AND ZELLER LETS OUT A LITTLE 'YEAH' LOOKING DOWN. HE'S SO TORN UP OVER BEVERLY IT'S SO SAD AND ADORABLE. 
> 
> Price would /try/ to take his mind off her, doing dorky, animal-loving things, but Zeller would push him away and Price would be a bit wide-eyed-puppy-dog-faced for a while while Zeller tried to process on his own.
> 
> Eventually, I think, Zeller would come back; like, fuckin, sit on a park bench outside of Quantico and help Price feed the geese or whatever. And he'd start talking about Beverly and Price would nod and just say things like, I remember" and Zeller would glance at him with wet eyes and a smile and then away quickly again.

"I just... I'm afraid I'm gonna /forget/ her," he admits quietly to the shredded bread in his hands. "No one else... worked with her like I did, no one else was /there/, it..." His hands tighten. "Feels like she was invisible. Like /I'm/ invisible." 

"Hey," Price placated, setting the loaf of bread on the bench to his unprotected side, not caring when a daring Canada Goose sidled up and stole the whole thing and strutted away, starting a food fight not feet from their bench. His hand slides over Zeller's back, for /once/ not muffled by nearly as many protective layers. "/I/ was there, Brian. We were /both/ there. You know how many crime scenes I've worked with you?" 

Zeller shook his head. "Nope." 

/I bet you counted with Beverly,/ Price realized, miffed and saddened, and soldiered on. "I lost count after 200." 

Zeller raised his head. "200?" Finally looking him in the eyes. 

Price smiles and nods, leaving his hand were it is. "And that was last March." 

Zeller's eyebrows lift. "/Last/ March?" 

Price nods again. "I've been here the whole time, Brian. And I'm not going /anywhere/," he insists, squeezing Zeller's opposite shoulder. 

"Yeah," Zeller tries to dredge up some humor from his clouded soul, "You aren't brave enough to go toe-to-toe with the Ripper, Jim." Price realizes it wasn't meant to sting, so he raises his eyebrows as if that was plain obvious. 

"Ohh-ho, no. I know where /I'm/ needed. I picked lab work for a reason, Brian. And so did you." He pulls his arm back from behind Zeller's back and studies his exhausted face. "I'll make you some chicken soup tonight, bring it in tomorrow. That sound good for lunch, buddy?" 

Zeller's face cracked along his mouth and his smile was almost too wide to be believed when he replied, "That sounds good for /dinner/ if you don't mind the company." 

Price smiled more sedately and mused, "An empty house is the worst thing when you've lost someone." 

Zeller searched his friend's face. "Who did you lose?" 

Price blinked a few times and something shuttered in his eyes. "Oh," he sighed, putting on the air of his usual subtle humor, "It was a long time ago now. Several years. Several /dozen/." His face is falling without his consent and he starts when Zeller puts a hand on /his/ shoulder. 

"Hey, Jim. 'M sorry. Didn't mean to bring you down too." 

Price shook his head and stood up. "Not much worse can happen to our sturdy little group, can it? Jack's losing his wife, you lost Beverly, we've all lost Will... Worst thing that can happen now is one of /us/ gets crossed off." 

Zeller looks up at him with all the seriousness he's ever shown and then some. "Don't get crossed off, Jim." 

Price raises his eyebrows. "I won't if you won't," he offers along with a hand to help Zeller stand. 

Zeller takes it with a smile and shakes it once when he's upright. "t's a deal!" He kind of forgets to let go of Price's hand as they walk back to the building. Price doesn't correct him and Zeller lets go naturally to fish out his keycard to get back in the building. 

When they both clock out that evening, Zeller follows Price home in his car. They make four servings of chicken soup and Zeller offers to come back the next night to help Price finish it off. There's no one left in his house to help him, after all.

Zeller's car starts following Price's home most days. 

After a while, Zeller's car stops showing up at HQ. 

Price overhears Zeller telling a curious former classmate who saw them both exiting Price's car in the parking lot that they're car-pooling to save on gas money. So Price starts telling people this as well. Or he would have, if anyone had asked. 

No one asks. 

It seemed perfectly natural to everyone else. Nothing like a little grief and trauma to bring a tiny group even closer together. 

*****

He glances over at Zeller one night as he dries his hands on a dish towel. Zeller is tromping over to his customary place on the couch without a word. Price listens to it creak as his colleague settles in, a lusty sigh leaving his lips. He doesn't have to think to picture him, hands behind his neck, head tipped back, eyes closed, sagging, relaxing into the overstuffed cushions like he could imagine nothing better after a long day. 

Price swallows once and went over to him. He places one hand on Zeller's extended elbow and murmurs, "If you want. My bed is big enough for two." 

Zeller's confused hum sounded behind him as he pushes in chairs in the dining room and walks more loudly than normal up the staircase to let Zeller know he had truly left the room. 

He asks him about it in the car on the way to work, of course, and Price sticks to his guns. 

"Well, it is," he replies matter of factly, his head doing that faint side-to-side wiggle it would do when Price felt he was above the current topic of discussion. 

"Yeah, but you wouldn't have /told/ me that if you didn't want me to... what, /join/ you in it?" He stares at Price, who keeps his poker face in place and his eyes on the road as he carefully executes a rather pointless lane-change. "You... want me to join you? In your bed? Um, Jim?" 

"Yes, Brian?" Price asks with an extra layer of politeness to his voice that Zeller hasn't heard in a while. 

"Are we... Are we gay?" 

Price bursts out laughing, glancing over briefly as the car swerves alarmingly. Zeller goes slightly pale and clutches at the seatbelt over his chest. "Oh, /come/ on, Brian, actions don't determine sexuality! If you were gay, and shared a bed with a woman, would that make you straight automatically?" 

"Of course /not/," Zeller sniped back, and Price's face settled back in for the drive. "I just meant that... Oh, forget it." 

In a slight huff, Price watched with faint amusement as Zeller bustled more agitatedly than normal at work that day. 

He grabbed Price's arm nearly as soon as they could reasonably claim their work day over and steered him purposefully toward the car. "I'll drive," he insisted, pointing Price into the passenger seat of his own car. 

Price let him, wondering if he was going to start holding doors open for him too. He didn't. 

He unwrapped and tossed their dinner in the oven rather more violently than normal once they got home and chewed with the dedication of a man with something to prove. Price had /no/ idea what to expect of him once the sun set. 

Zeller washed the dishes as Price dried them, as per usual, and didn't respond to any of the older man's sidelong glances as he usually did. He drank two extra fingers of whisky while catching up on email, which concerned Price, so he put aside his own customary drink in order to retain an edge of sobriety should things get weird later. 

He blinked at it repeatedly, wondering why its lure seemed much farther away than it usually did. Fainter, less enticing. He found it so easy to turn away from the bottle in the cupboard and shut down his work computer, despite not finding an answer inside his /own/ head. 

"Okay, Brian, come on. We're going to prove you and every conversion therapist ever 100% wrong." 

"What?" Zeller's head snapped up and his eyes seemed faintly unfocused. Price wondered if he'd heard. 

"We're gonna have a sleepover. I dare you to stay up past midnight so we can tell ghost stories." 

Zeller's face cracked along his mouth again, lines forming in the skin to accentuate the expression. "We are /not/. We're not 10, Jimmy." 

"We're not 20, either," Price pointed out, peeling the now-empty glass from Zeller's fingers and hauling him upstairs by the elbow. "We are grown-ass men, and it's nobody's business how we sleep at night. Even if it's together." 

"I don't sleep naked," Zeller told him, seemingly out of the blue. 

Price rolled with it, tugging him again, as he'd stopped walking up the stairs to tell him that. "Good! Neither do I." 

Once in the bedroom, Zeller looked around for a minute, cataloging things, finally steeling himself to examine the bed. It was a perfectly ordinary queen-size bed. Sheets, a blanket, rumpled. Laundry in the corner of the room. No one to impress. 

With alcohol-loosened tongue, he asked Price, "Should I sleep on your dead wife's side?" 

Price stood frozen for a moment, a more dead-eyed thousand yard stare than Zeller had seen in quite some time on his face. Then he shook it off and nodded at Zeller. "Yes, better do that. I could do with some new mental associations of that side." 

So Zeller toed off his shoes and was about to fall into what looked like the lesser-used side of the bed when Price shooed him to the bathroom to brush his teeth. Zeller groaned at him but Price insisted and the bathroom was attached to the bedroom anyway. A second door led out into the hall and Zeller, easily lost, opened both doors repeatedly before wandering back into the bedroom. 

Price held the sheets open for him and Zeller rolled in with a whumpf. Wriggling to get comfortable, he bid Price goodnight with a huge goofy smile on his face that he refused to remember in the morning. 

(END)


End file.
